Looking for free defragmentation tool? Then try Defraggler. I’m not sure what’s the advantage compared to the defragmentation tool from Windows, maybe there is one – who knows. Defraggler allows defrag of individual files and comes with Vista support.
Links
Screenshot
Looking for a free CD/DVD/Blu-Ray/HD-DVD burning application? Try StarBurn, it comes with many features and is easy to use:
The professional version is available for $9 and the enterprise version for $49. Real nice price!
Links
Hard disc full? No idea where are all the big files?
There is a free version of TreeSize from JAM software available which calculates the size of all folders of your hard disc. You can also expand the folder Explorer-like and find out where all the disc space is wasted. JAM software also offers a professional version which is capable of scanning network folders as well.
See also:
You are looking for a video player which simply plays your movies? Sounds easy, but usually the Microsoft Media Player complains some missing codecs, other players are slow, often crashing… Watching different kind of video formats seems difficult on the PC. Too many formats are available, .WMV, .MOV, .MPG, .AVI and many more.
The crazy thing: .WMV is not equal .WMV. The codec behind is really a different thing. In my opinion best solution would be that only MPEG2 and MPEG4/H.264 would be used. But as usual licensing and other policital issues make it more difficult. So we are faced to a very high number of video formats and codecs.
Quite annoying for the user who only wants to watch a movie which will often not work. My suggestion is to use the VLC media player. It’s free to use, supports almost any video format and works on all well known operating systems.
Furthermore it supports many options for video streaming. Below is a screen shot of a NASA HD video which shows the Endeavor launch on mission STS-126. There you will find other HD videos.
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For Windows there is a cute little tool from Microsoft available which can be used to synchronize folders. It is part of the Windows Server 2003 Resource Tool Kit and called “Robocopy”. It is a command line tool which supports UNC path names. So it’s a useful tool to sync folders e.g. to a network storage (NAS).
A simple call to sync a folder to a second local hard disc looks like:
robocopy c:\temp\Privat "e:\backup" /MIR
/MIR mirror a directory tree
If you want to sync to a NAS storage which is not based on a Microsoft Operating System you need to add some further flags:
robocopy c:\temp\Privat "\\ts-101\USB Disk 1\Test" /MIR /Z /A /M
/Z copy files in restartable mode (useful when sync e.g. over DSL connection which may sometimes terminate)
/M copy only files with the Archive attribute set and reset it (needed if you want to sync to a NAS storage which is not based on Microsoft)
/A copy only files with the Archive attribute set (needed if you want to sync to a NAS storage which is not based on Microsoft)
Obtaining Robocopy
No Backups for Microsofties?
Mac users will already know the comfort of automated backups to an external hard disc or a network attached storage (NAS) running in background without user action. It’s really useful and easy to use. Microsoft users usually need to find their own backup solution. They can buy extra tools or use some Freeware/OpenSource tools.
My Goals
It’s not much I want, just a few things should be fulfilled:
SyncToy V2 from Microsoft
Looking for such a automated backup solution I came across the tool SyncToy from Microsoft. It’s currently only available in English language. SyncToy can be obtained for free from the Microsoft homepage:
It is an easy to use Windows application for copying, moving, renaming and deleting files between folder and computers. Handling is easy, the source (left) folder as well as the destination (right) folder is specified. In my case I use the “Echo” sync action, which means that files on the destination folder are also deleted in case they are deleted on my notebook/PC. A preview can be started to see what would happen and finally the synchronization can be started using the “Run” button.
Still Manual
OK, now we have an easy to use synchronisation tool and it’s for free but it’s not yet running automated in background. To do this automatically the Windows Task Scheduler is used. We generate a new scheduled task through Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Scheduled Tasks. The following command line should be entered for the scheduled task:
"C:\Program Files\SyncToy 2.0\SyncToyCmd.exe" -R
You will need to enter a user should execute the task. You can use your current account (please note: a password seems to be needed, empty passwords seems not to work). Of course you can also generate an extra user, e.g. “backup”. Take care, if the scheduled task is executed as different user which is currently logged in, it’s needed to start SyncToy with “Run As…” for configuration because the configuration is stored separated for every user.
Backup when Idle
When you want to have backups done always when your notebook/PC is idle, then choose the corrosponding option for the scheduled task: execute when idle. My Windows is in German language, so I don’t know the correct name. Furthermore you can define after which passed time in idle the task should be executed. I use 10 minutes here in a first try.
Within the scheduled task options further options can be set like “run task not when operating in battery mode”, “stop task when battery mode is entered” which might be useful for notebooks.
Hint: The user which will execute SyncToy must have access to the local files as well as the remote directory. For debugging try the “Preview” button and the log file (File, view log).
Result
Using a free tool the files of my notebook/PC are not synchronized automatically when I’ve not done any user input for 10 minutes. Great!
It keeps unclear why Microsoft doesn’t add such a backup tool in Windows. Also installation is not absolutely easy. It would be nice if scheduling options could directly be set in SyncToy.
Compared to TimeMachine for Mac really missing are incremental backups, which means you have backups also available from past in a history.
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For personal use there is a simple free setup builder GkSetup available. It’s suitable for standard setups. So if you are looking for one give this one a try.
The FREE Edition offers:
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Digital photo cameras are nowadays every where. Photographing got easy and cheap for everyone. So there is a need to organize your photos easily. A cute nice tool for doing this is Google Picasa. And it’s free. It’s also available in German language.
I like it because it’s really easy to use and it offers many features:
Or you can generate collages, slideshow movies with one click like the following (pictures are taken at Port of Hamburg):
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I could survive several years now without playing Solitaire, good luck. But after obtaining a iPhone things got worse and I’m addicted again…
A must for Solitaire addicts! Many options, nice graphics and cute sound effects.
The lite version is free and fulfills my whishes absolutely. Get it from SolitaireCity or directly from your iTunes shop under free applications.
Update: The latest lite version includes less games, unfortunalty my favorite is missing now. Therefore I’ve purchased the full version now. According to feedback in the iTunes store the new version is a little bit unstable. I can confirm that the app does sometimes terminate when choosing games, but playing itself seems stable. For me still worth paying for the app.
Useful tips regarding technical stuff for things like Linux, MySQL, apache, PHP, linux server, iPhone and more.